Liza's Statement of Consulting Philosophy

As a writing consultant, I have three values that I consistently keep in mind as I’m working with students. The first is the idea that writing is not about phrasing any more than it’s about accurately portraying a message, and therefore wording should never be put ahead of content. Another is freedom from strict guidelines. Unless it’s included in a prompt from a teacher, I never want to tell a writer that they have to write something a certain way or use a certain outline. The last thing is that, in a consultation session, I don’t want to be viewed as an authority. I’ll never try to overpower the judgement of the writer, and I’ll never tell them that the things that I feel we should work on are more important than the things they feel we should work on.  
I view writing as a form of art, and firmly believe that being given as much creative freedom as possible is necessary in order to facilitate the best outcome of any project. My goal is to provide guidance through conversation so that most, if not all, of the ideas that are produced during a session are coming from the writer. In my experience as a musician, people are much more in their element when they have the option to choose what they do and do not change about their projects, and it makes it so that they end up performing better. This is how I intend to go about peer consulting. 
I am currently taking Seminar in Peer Consulting. The class puts a lot of emphasis on our growth in courage, empathy, honesty, antiracism, and integrity. All of the assignments that I was asked to do required deep self-analyzation regarding those terms, and I am leaving feeling much more clear and confident in how I apply them to my everyday life. I feel that this has caused me to grow, and I have a much more grounded, empathetic approach to the way I go about anything, but especially any kind of work involving my peers. The goals of the semester were to be introduced to peer consulting, to become familiar with theories about peer consulting, and to engage with the conventions of disciplinary writing. Although there were obstacles that I had to overcome, such as a fear of giving bad advice, I feel very confident that I have met these goals over the course of the semester, and am excited to begin consulting my peers outside of this class.  
When I do consultations I usually start by asking the writer if they would like to read their paper out loud, and then we go from there, taking what we both heard into consideration. One of the topics I focused on a lot recently is how important it is to be able to interpret information, and reword it in a way that not only expresses the content of the information, but the writer's own analytical thoughts regarding the content. For example, I worked with a student who had written an argumentative essay that was almost completely made up of facts and quotes from some really solid sources. I noticed that it felt a bit like a textbook, however, in the sense that there was so much information packed in that it was a bit hard to comprehend, and I noticed a lack of commentary from the student. In order to fix this, I explained what I noticed, and then we went through and found a few spots where some personal commentary could be added.
My experience in music school has helped me build my consulting techniques quite a lot. Every week, I get to give comments on performances from my studio-mates, and that has served as an excellent introduction to peer consulting. The environment I have experienced in my studio is incredibly positive, and has made me feel more comfortable and confident in a workshop environment. My commitment to creating and helping to create meaningful things is shown in my love of music and writing. Because of how much I value these things, my ability to help other students achieve the same is evident, and it is extremely important to me.